Comments on: Jokerhttp://outlawvern.com/2019/10/08/joker/
home of Vern, critic and authorSun, 07 Jun 2020 08:16:12 +0000hourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.14By: Skanihttp://outlawvern.com/2019/10/08/joker/#comment-3408893
Wed, 15 Jan 2020 03:36:58 +0000http://outlawvern.com/?p=35833#comment-3408893I appreciate the perspectives and dialogue. Thanks for processing the film a bit with me. I’m still not sure what I think/feel about it, but it’s gotten a bit under my skin, and the discussion has challenged some of my original assumptions, which I’ll take as a good thing.
]]>By: Palermohttp://outlawvern.com/2019/10/08/joker/#comment-3408887
Tue, 14 Jan 2020 19:58:46 +0000http://outlawvern.com/?p=35833#comment-3408887Skani – Admitting that the film is a bit of a Rorschach Test, that late-capitalism reading is the only way I’m able to see it. I think for people whose politics are more liberal-centrist, the movie doesn’t register as positively. Like it’s interesting how many rich people don’t see that PARASITE isn’t on their side (it’s Elon Musk’s favourite movie of the year), yet something about JOKER hits them as much more threatening.
]]>By: Tuukkahttp://outlawvern.com/2019/10/08/joker/#comment-3408863
Tue, 14 Jan 2020 15:19:24 +0000http://outlawvern.com/?p=35833#comment-3408863“Some questions
*Is Arthur credible / plausible as Joker? He does not seem very intelligent or capable of masterminding anything, and Joker does not seem like a sad sack emo.
*Can he grow into the Joker we know (any iteration, but in the sense of intelligence, resourcefulness, poise, articulateness)?
*Does knowing that the Joker had a really hard life make him more or less compelling and effective as a character and as an eventual foil to Batman.
*Is this Gotham a Gotham worth saving. Is it the distorted, incomplete yang that points the way toward a countevailing yin? A sequel with Batman that shows us a different, more hopeful worldview could be interesting. I don’t really want to see an anti-hero Batman who is as bad or worse than Arthur.”

RE:

A & B: We only see Joker at the end, when he puts on the smile. And the mental hospital scene after that. What is he capable of? We don’t know. They could actually do a pretty interesting part 2 answering that. Hopefully the rather inevitable Batman Vs. Joker will answer it around 2024 or so. Even Phoenix can be persuaded to do a sequel, after his inevitable Oscar win, worldwide adoration for his character and acting, and the unimaginable amounts of money the studio will give him.

C: Well, it’s just a a different take on Joker. Ledger was partially so awesome because he was just a chaotic force of nature. No backstory. No history. No explanation. Just pure chaos. That made him tick. This is a different Joker, but I think it’s just as compelling.

D: Everyone has been saying that the next Batman film will emphasise his detective skills. Which is a good choice, as it will make him different, yet part of the canon. And I think Pattinson is great, inspired casting. I don’t think Gotham is beyond saving at all, but this has been a fairly re-occurring part of the Batman mythos. If you watch the Gotham TV-series (Which I like for it’s ambition), it’s really a major part of the overall story.

These are repetitive, but:
1. I do think there is an interesting reading of this film that says that late-capitalism is responsible for all of this (which problematizes my reading of Phillips as a latent dude-bro). Basically, the capitalist, laissez faire system is a lie that serves only a handful of scoundrels and their toadies, while it dehumanizes, exploits, and destroys everyone else. Arthur is then something of a hero, because he is woke to the fact that the whole thing is a dirty rotten system where the rot propagates top down, and where everyone is forced to make a choice to either play the game or push back against the game. Even if I have a negative emotional and ethical reaction to what he does, there is a certain coherence and latent political quality to it. Basically, get woke and then pick a side, or get out of my way.

2. I do give the film credit for taking an unflinching look at Arthur, both what he goes through and what he puts others through. I do think this film is risky in its own way in general and in the current environment. Even films like DEADPOOL win us over by emotionally manipulating us into warm fuzzies of one form or another. Oh, that rascal, Deadpool. This film really challenges us to hang in there with Arthur and wrestle with our feelings about the whole thing and the discomfort it engenders. It does not give us any kind of warm fuzzies ever, and even though I think that leaves it incomplete and kind of blinkered, it is a bold choice in its own way.

Some questions
*Is Arthur credible / plausible as Joker? He does not seem very intelligent or capable of masterminding anything, and Joker does not seem like a sad sack emo.
*Can he grow into the Joker we know (any iteration, but in the sense of intelligence, resourcefulness, poise, articulateness)?
*Does knowing that the Joker had a really hard life make him more or less compelling and effective as a character and as an eventual foil to Batman.
*Is this Gotham a Gotham worth saving. Is it the distorted, incomplete yang that points the way toward a countevailing yin? A sequel with Batman that shows us a different, more hopeful worldview could be interesting. I don’t really want to see an anti-hero Batman who is as bad or worse than Arthur.

This comes back to my earlier point. As the opening salvo or first act in some bigger story that does a better job of mixing darkness and light, despair and hope, I can see this film working much better in retrospect. But its almost mean-spirited grimness makes it hard to embrace as stand-alone, even if I appreciate its singular commitment to its weird vision.

]]>By: Tuukkahttp://outlawvern.com/2019/10/08/joker/#comment-3408861
Tue, 14 Jan 2020 14:55:42 +0000http://outlawvern.com/?p=35833#comment-3408861Well, I think this also connects with the point I was making earlier: It’s hard to identify with Arthur. Because he’s completely crazy, a loose cannon. With a massive amount of psychopathic rage, which comes clearer and clearer the further the story goes. I think the people who identify with him the most, are people who themselves have mental health issues (Unfortunately I have not been safe from those issues myself).

But considering the absolutely massive success of the film, I think a lot of people can relate to issues of mental instability, isolation, loneliness, desperation, anger, rage, all of which Arthur so clearly has. The film doesn’t connect with everyone, but it does connect with a lot of people.

I agree that the whole rich vs. poor aspect is poorly handled. And I don’t think that audiences relate to that half-baked storyline very much. It’s all the other things I mentioned, that form a connection.

In the end, I don’t care much about the riots. But I do like the moment when Arthur is standing on top of the car, surrounded by people, and for the first time, he puts a smile on his face. Thus becoming Joker. Like I said earlier, it’s not a realistic movie. The whole concept is stupid in terms of real world. But as a comic book film, and as a piece of myth-making, I think it’s a great moment. And stories should not be judged by real world terms, I think. They can live in their own reality.

]]>By: Skanihttp://outlawvern.com/2019/10/08/joker/#comment-3408858
Tue, 14 Jan 2020 13:05:27 +0000http://outlawvern.com/?p=35833#comment-3408858Maybe I am getting hung up in the semantics of “point of view,” and maybe I simply don’t understand the concept.

Without a doubt, Arthur is the main character, and there is an almost solipsistic quality in how much he dominates every scene. There aren’t really scenes that I can recall whether other people are talking about him or pursuing things independent of him — people only appear as they interact with him or as he imagines them interacting with him. So, no one’s debating that the movie is about him.

And without a doubt, as you state, he is a bizarre and frequently off-putting character who unnerves, irritates, or otherwise befuddles those around him. Typically, it’s the other person he’s interacting with who grounds the scene and serves as a reference point. I find myself joining whoever that other person is in the given scene, sharing the thought, “man, get a load of this guy Arthur, will you.”

Maybe that’s where I get tripped up in the language about point of view, because even though it’s Arthur’s story, and even though the film is all in on taking us through the slog of his pain, I never quite feel like I’m inside that pain, and I never overcome a certain level of alienation and discomfort with Arthur (surely part of the idea). Every time the scene changes and some other character intersects with Arthur, I find myself sliding several steps closer to whomever that is to close ranks with them and put some distance between us and Arthur.

So, even though I kind of get Arthur, because the whole movie has been bashing me over the head with layer after layer of his never-ending hard luck story, he remains alien. This goes to your point about him being unpredictable and a hard character to entirely like. Whether it’s reductive, I do think he’s a more showy cross between Travis Bickle and Rupert Pupkin. The film certainly does the work to show us how he reaches his breaking point and then what happens afterward.

At the end, the attempt to use Arthur’s story to say something bigger about modern life, urban life, or human nature never quite comes together for me. There is this idea that it’s not just Arthur who’s had it bad, but that everything and everyone is just rotten to the core and irretrievably screwed. It feels unbalanced and childish. All the protest stuff should have been cut to make it clear that this is about Arthur, not about Arthur as folk hero. Unless that is all supposed to be his fantasy and I’m missing something there.

]]>By: Tuukkahttp://outlawvern.com/2019/10/08/joker/#comment-3408826
Tue, 14 Jan 2020 08:23:17 +0000http://outlawvern.com/?p=35833#comment-3408826The film doesn’t simply wholesale adopt Arthur’s point of view…. For example, when he’s fighting with the clerk over his records or having his argument with Murray Franklin or having his last exchange with his single mom neighbor or having his last exchange with the little person who works at his agency — all of his other interlocutors’ points of view are very salient, and I found myself most identifying and empathizing with them. Like them, I’m having that “what the hell is wrong with this guy?” experience. I am feeling threatened and uncomfortable with Arthur’s bizarre actions, i.e., adopting the viewpoint of the other person, not Arthur. There are certainly exceptions, like when Arthur meets Thomas Wayne face-to-face. In that scene, I’m team Arthur. So, I think the point of view and object of sympathy is more of a moving target that depends on who seems to be the most vulnerable vs. who seems the most malevolent in the given situation. And, at times, this can shift wildly even within a scene, like it does from the woman to Arthur to the fleeing investment guy in that subway scene.”

RE:

This is a fine point, but I think there is a strict difference between a story/character POV and the object of empathy. For example while the clerk is a nice guy and obviously more sane, Arthur has a much greater investment in the the scene. He NEEDS to see those records, and as an audience, so do we.

Single mum – We are afraid that Arthur might hurt her (Although at this point Arthur only hurts people who have wronged him). But the scene is really about Arthur in a moment of terror trying to connect with the only person who’s still there for him, and he has to admit to himself that even that connection is simply a delusion. The scene isn’t about the girl, it’s about Arthur.

With the little man, we are again worried that Arthur might hurt him, but the scene is really about the fact that Arthur still has a code – He hurts only those who have wronged him, and the little guy has never done anything bad to him. Again, we don’t really learn anything about the little guy.

The subway scene – The woman is afraid. The guys are assholes. That’s all there is to them. The scene is all about the Arthur: How he reacts to the woman being bullied (It seems like he wants to help, but is afraid to do so, leading to uncontrolled laughter.). Then the bullies beat him up, and for the first time, Arthur fights back. And kills, almost accidentally. Even he seems surprised what the first bullet does. And when the final guy is crawling away, we emphasise with his situation, simply because he is so scared and helpless. And this time Arthur kills with clear determination. So the scene is all about the development of the character of Arthur. The other characters are there simply to reflect on who Arthur is, and how he changes.

So while the film adjusts emotionally in many scenes, to allow us emphasise with supporting characters, the actual story and character POV is on Arthur. The scenes are about him, his experience, his change as a character.

I think you are right that the film doesn’t look quite like any one other Scorsese film (or quite like any one other Batman film, for that matter), but I do think it it looks a lot like if BATMAN BEGINS (which is pretty dingy and blighty) and TAXI DRIVER and KING OF COMEDY had a baby.

Also, while I certainly agree that the film definitely has a hyper-stylized aesthetic as far as sound and cinematography, the film doesn’t simply wholesale adopt Arthur’s point of view. Whether it is explicitly showing a KING OF COMEDY-like delusion or showing what by all appearances is a real act of violence, the film doesn’t always seem to show things from exclusively his point of view. For example, when he’s fighting with the clerk over his records or having his argument with Murray Franklin or having his last exchange with his single mom neighbor or having his last exchange with the little person who works at his agency — all of his other interlocutors’ points of view are very salient, and I found myself most identifying and empathizing with them. Like them, I’m having that “what the hell is wrong with this guy?” experience. I am feeling threatened and uncomfortable with Arthur’s bizarre actions, i.e., adopting the viewpoint of the other person, not Arthur. There are certainly exceptions, like when Arthur meets Thomas Wayne face-to-face. In that scene, I’m team Arthur. So, I think the point of view and object of sympathy is more of a moving target that depends on who seems to be the most vulnerable vs. who seems the most malevolent in the given situation. And, at times, this can shift wildly even within a scene, like it does from the woman to Arthur to the fleeing investment guy in that subway scene.

For me, that is part of the problem, and I think it feeds into the problem you concede as far as the social-political commentary. The film seems conflicted or simply muddled and under-developed with respect to the central question of, how should we feel about Arthur and his ilk? Sympathetic? Guilty? Revolted? Psyched to take to the streets and join him? I think most viewers can get on board with the idea that he is a trauma victim and is sympathetic. When he snaps, we can certainly understand how or why this has happened, though at this point, I think he rightly loses a lot of the audience’s sympathy, even if he maintains our empathy. And I’m not sure how we are supposed to feel about the mobs of people who seem to spontaneously rally around his actions, as if he were some sort of folk hero. To my knowledge, we have never really seen that kind of a movement, where people actually start to rally around a murderer as a kind of man-of-the-people hero. Sure, maybe in the case of guerrillas and freedom fighters/terrorists, but Arthur does not really fit that mold — he’s a lone wolf.

It’s not a simple matter of the film forcing us to feel conflicting and taboo feelings about what Arthur does, because I think the majority will feel horrified and revolted by what he does and not particularly sympathetic, as things escalate. The point at which Arthur loses one’s sympathy will probably vary, but I think it happens at some point for most of us — even those of us who agree that the system is broken and that Thomas Wayne is an asshole and that Arthur has had a cruel, unjust, and tragic life. It’s not just that we disapprove or tsk-tsk those actions — in the case of the protests and such, it just doesn’t really ring true to me that a whole sympathetic movement would rise up around Arthur.

And even though, as I said above, I don’t think the film consistently asks us to adopt Arthur’s point of view or to agree with his action, what bothers me is that, towards the end of the film, it does seem to increasingly move in the direction of signaling that Arthur’s actions are a kind of personal cathartic triumph and that he is a sort of folk hero.

I guess that is something to think about — the way the film assails not only the rich, powerful elites (Thomas Waynes and his brokers), but also the rich clowns who are complicit in preserving the status quo (Murray Franklin), and the bureaucratic foot soldiers who mistakenly act as arms of an ultimately broken system (the social worker, the records clerk), the unenlighted sheep who perpetuate and enable the system by staying in the rat race (his workaday clown agencies buddies and boss). I guess I utlimately felt there were narrative and tonal problems with the combination of an unremittingly grim “everyone’s broken, everything’s fucked, we’re all complicit.” As a setup for a Batman film, it might be pretty great. As a stand-alone, self-contained story, it just seemed too far up its own wanna-see-something-really-messed-up arse.

It seems most people are mostly interested discussing about how other people see the film, or how Todd Philips sees it, or whatever. I’m more interested about what I saw myself, but I will comment on some of the consensus, when it directly contradicts what I saw.

First of all this is not a realistic film. It’s a fantasy. A fairy tale. It even looks like a fantasy, as visually it mostly has a feverish, dream-like quality to it. And yes, it does look stunning. And it doesn’t look like anything Scorsese has ever made. Certainly not like Taxi Driver. The closest visual comparison would be Shutter Island, probably.
Even the musical choices emphasise the fantasy aspect a lot, with very old, cinematic classics playing on the background.

And while Phoenix is amazing in the lead, it’s a knowingly exaggerated, theatrical performance. Everyone else is very good as well.

Directing is pretty great. There are several stand-out scenes and the suspenseful set-pieces are played to perfection. The film is tense as hell, since while there is very little violence, Arthur is such a completely unpredictable character, that I never knew what he was going to next. So it was actually quite refreshing, how I never knew what the next step was gonna be. Yes, we all know where the film is gonna end, roughly, because it’s the story of Joker. But I could have never figured out how the dominoes were gonna fall.

Your reaction to the film is pretty much entirely dependent on how you feel about Arthur. He is in nearly every scene of the film, and everything plays from his POV. I related to some things in him, sometimes even liked him. But he is not an easy person for most audiences to simply like. I would say it’s much easier to be interested and intrigued by him. And if that doesn’t work for you, then the film can be boring and hard to like.

A genuine problem with the film: The class divide aspect of the film is pretty weak, and only works as a plot device to get Arthur from A to B. It didn’t bother me much, but by adding another 5 minutes and making Arthur more a part of it, it would given the film more thematic weight.

But as a depiction of loneliness, isolation and madness it works well. Much of Arthur’s thoughts and feelings ring true. However, the final act goes straight to fantasy land. Because (SPOILER) Arthur heals himself by actually embracing his madness and rage, the cathartic feeling of simply letting go. All his life, he has been trying to do the exact opposite, by trying to hide from everyone who he truly is, trying to maintain control. So THEMATICALLY it works great, especially for the character of Joker, but it’s probably not a realistic idea to “heal” yourself by killing people, and laughing about it.

Vern’s comment about Arthur having a problem with black people sounds weird to me. Black people are sometimes a nuisance to him, but he also likes some. And all the people he actually HATES, are white. All the people he KILLS, are white. With a likely exception of one off-screen kill towards the end. But at that point he is no more Arthur Fleck. He is Joker, and Joker has no code.

I think there is good nihilistic stuff out there, don’t get me wrong. As is well-documented round these parts, I’m down with the nihilistic bent we find in Ari Aster and, to a lesser extent, Ti West — to name a couple. But with those guys, I feel like it’s more just a particular band of the horror storytelling spectrum that they like to explore — they like to draw horror with the bleaker-colored crayons from the box. Whether this is accurate or not, for some reason, I don’t come away from those guys’ films with the feeling that they are intended to express some deeply rooted agenda or philosophy of life. It’s just an idiom.

With Phillips, it feels like he is trying to express some kind of personal philosophy or make some kind of political statement, but that statement is basically just the same Tyler Durden Cliff’s Notes nihilism that tries to pass of detached, self-protective cynicism for depth and insight. Not that he is going so far as endorsing Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck’s behavior, but that he does view this film as some kind of symbolic message film and that he does generally resonate with the sentiment it expresses, which is that everything is bullshit and everyone is a broken selfish bullshit phony, and the answer is tear shit down without any alternative, positive vision.

Now, having said all that, I do think it’s well-worth the $2 I spent on it, and it *is* a bold film to make in our current climate, where the playbook says you should make a focus-grouped PG-13 joker film with Taco Bell tie-ins. This film is interesting and bold as a major studio comic book franchise business move, and I like what it implies (That there is an audience for strange, dark, competent, artier-inclined films). I just do think it’s more style than substance.

]]>By: Mr. Majestykhttp://outlawvern.com/2019/10/08/joker/#comment-3408762
Sun, 12 Jan 2020 16:30:21 +0000http://outlawvern.com/?p=35833#comment-3408762Me on everything the internet cares about: “it’s pretty thin and not particularly groundbreaking — pretty derivative of its obvious influences and forerunners, just super-sized with an extra dollop of dour. Certainly not worth all the initial fuss.”
]]>By: Skanihttp://outlawvern.com/2019/10/08/joker/#comment-3408758
Sun, 12 Jan 2020 15:27:30 +0000http://outlawvern.com/?p=35833#comment-3408758Caught up with this one yesterday, courtesy of our good friends at Redbox.

High-level hot take: An interesting and overall pretty good, if slight and over-hyped, film. A lot of individual elements work, and there are a handful of genuinely inspired moments, but the whole ends up feeling thin-to-vaucous. It is more an exercise or an experiment in meta-film-making than it is a film that could get by on its own merits.

Stray thoughts:
It was interesting seeing De Niro in the Jerry Lewis KING OF COMEDY role, and I thought he played it well. I loved the period stuff and the grimy look. I liked the feel of the Murray Franklin Show, right down to that great name Murray Franklin and the great fake guest names.

Performances were all first-rate, particularly Frances Conroy. Bryan Tyree Henry stood out, as well, though it was a short appearance.

Phoenix’s performance is a great technical achievement, but I found it mostly distracting in its lugubrious, tic-ful physicality. Impressive as an exercise in ascetic, contorted, unhingedness, but ultimately kind of empty. I will say that the last 25 or so minutes of the film gathers some momentum, as Phoenix’s portrayal starts to acquire some shape that might add up to more than a bag of angst and mannerisms. Phillips, Phoenix, have something interesting on their hands in the last act, though this is undercut by an ill-advised coda.

Film-as-a-whole-and-in-context Thoughts
It’s a handsome and competent film and an intermittently interesting one with some nice little flourishes. But it’s too self-serious, disappearing into its own “nihilstic agitprop / important work of art” pretensions. The Occupy Gotham piece was covered pretty effectively in DARK KNIGHT RISES (which offered a lot else besides). The grimy look and feel is BATMAN BEGINS and early 80s Scorsese in a blender. Like Rupert Pupkin, Phoenix’s Joker is a delusional hack and pretty damn boring once you push aside his affectations and his morose edginess. He can’t come close to the Heath Ledger Joker, who was a singular mixture of intelligence, menance, and truly unpredictable strangeness. Unlike Ledger, and n a twist of irony, Phoenix’s Joker takes himself way too damn seriously, just like this film does itself.

Jerry Springer’s Final Thoughts
In the end, we have a fairly generic, and/or derivative, and/or under-baked set of themes, which is noteworthy, since the film clearly seems to aspire at being about capital-S “Something.” It seems to want to be about something more than just Arthur. It wants Arthur to be a microcosm or a mirror for society– the bastard son of our sick society; the anti-hero that we and our times don’t need but nevertheless deserve.

With that said, what is this movie trying to say?
(a) laissez faire robber baron-ism and under-funded governments are a positive feedback loop of systemic shittiness?
(b) a shitty system turns people shitty?
(c) shitty people turn the system shitty or allow it to turn shitty?
(d) at root, most all people are shitty, and so it’s no surprise that we find this at all levels and crannies of society and day-to-day life.
(e) Life is not just shitty, but it is shit. One big joke, one big F-U, where there are no heroes, only villains, and where the closest thing to being a hero is being honest about the fact that we’re all villains. To acquire and exercise agency is to commit evil, because there is no authentic agency in do-gooding. Since nothing matters, and everything is brutish and selfish, the truly heroic act is a Nietszche-esque embrace of of nihilism. Cynical nihilism is the only path toward authenticity, becuase the world is fundamentally and authentically nihilistic.

The film betrays its late-90s college freshman Marilyn Manson poster dimestore nihilism in its decision to offer us no heroes — no heroes of the Bruce Wayne variety, nor even any heroes of the Jim Gordon or Rachel Dawes variety. Only monsters, low-lifes, dirtbags, cowards, power-mongers, manipulators, phonies, or mindless lackeys. And then Arthur, the lone, woke-to-nihilism agent***

As such, it’s an interesting exercise, if little else. It is a new strain of comic book film, a new way to exploit comic book branding, and a pseudo-cynical “anti-comic-book” comic book film that is laughing its meta- / grimdark ass all the way to the $1B box office bank. It’s something I’ll probably revisit at least once, but my hot take is that it’s pretty thin and not particularly groundbreaking — pretty derivative of its obvious influences and forerunners, just super-sized with an extra dollop of dour. Certainly not worth all the initial fuss.

***It’s interesting to me that Vern highlights the intetional or unintentional African-American-directed racism, because it’s the two African-American characters (the actors from ATLANTA) who are virtually the only ones who come out of this looking like decent people.

]]>By: Skanihttp://outlawvern.com/2019/10/08/joker/#comment-3408455
Sun, 29 Dec 2019 16:07:55 +0000http://outlawvern.com/?p=35833#comment-3408455The confluence of this film and then the IRISHMAN coming out inspired me to watch KING OF COMEDY for the first time. I really enjoyed it. I’m not sure what I would have made of it if I’d been a 40-something-year-old person in 1983 when this came out, but some things that I enjoyed:

1. What I anachronistically experience as a “throwback” early 80s NYC aesthetic. It’s in the sweet spot of feeling somewhat “modern” (Reagan era and beyond, I guess) but also clearly “analog.” There’s an interesting mix of glitz, grime, and otherworldiness to that iteration of NYC.

2. Jerry Lewis’s incredible performance, which is a master class in restrained intensity and, for lack of a better word, dignity and integrity.

3. DeNiro is also great. His serious actor persona is often defined by his roles as strong-silent-type gangsters and heavies, like with GODFATHER II and GOODFELLA and with his most successful comedies, which were premised on subverting that persona by re-purposing it as the straight man. What you really appreciate in looking at his work in things like CAPE FEAR, TAXI DRIVER, and then KING OF COMEDY here, is his capacity to play a really broad range of different types of unhinged weirdo. In CAPE FEAR he’s utterly terrifying, and in this one you just want to literally slap some sense into him. He really feeds your empathy and admiration for Lewis’s Jerry Langford character, who is remarkably patient, self-aware, authentic, and clear-eyed in all of his interactions with De Niro’s Rupert.

4. I love the weirdness of De Niro and Lewis being co-leads, with no less inspired a choice than Sandra Bernhard as a supporting actress. Such oddly inspired casting and generous performances. Their anti-chemistry chemistry is fantastic. The scenes with Bernhard and De Niro are great, as well. As is the rest of the supporting cast.

5. The little Walter Mitty scenes where we go inside De Niro’s world of unreality are really fascinating and creepy and heartbreaking, and the ending connects to these in some haunting ways.

6. As strange as it is, it’s also oddly quiet and workmanlike in a lot of respects. It’s not overly showy or enamored of its own avant garde-ish-ness. It lets the scenes, characters, and dialogue speak for themselves. For the most part, there is very little exposition or explaining what’s happening, but at the same time its very talky, being driven by dialogue or, in Rupert’s case, inner monologue. Even though characters are constantly verbalizing their thought processes, this seems appropriate and necessary, because these are all people who are trying to shape their environments and self-images primarily through language — fantasy, showmanship, salesmanship, jokes, stories, propositions.

7. It’s interesting to watch this film in 2019, because there is a confluence of various “full circle” synchronicities. In JOKER, we have De Niro apparently playing a role very similar to the Jerry Lewis role in a film that overtly acknowledges KING OF COMEDY and the early-80s Scorsese-verse NYC as its inspiration. Meanwhile, at about the same time, we have the latest and possibly last Scorsese-DeNiro collaboration, which traces De Niro’s journey from early adulthood through middle age into old age. The Frank Sheeran character’s heyday tightly overlaps the Jerry Lewis/Jerry Langford heyday, and like Lewis/Langford, the best days are past and the times they are a changin as he journeys into middle age and beyond in the later 70s early 80s timeframe.

Highly recommend watching this film for any number reasons, some of which I’ve tried to delineate. Actually gets me excited to give JOKER a try on DVD now that the hype has died down (and, with it, my backlash to the hype) — primarily for the De Niro / Scorsese-verse elements and because I do enjoy Phoenix as an actor.

]]>By: Nabroleon Dynamitehttp://outlawvern.com/2019/10/08/joker/#comment-3404477
Wed, 23 Oct 2019 03:46:17 +0000http://outlawvern.com/?p=35833#comment-3404477“That they were able to make such a watchable movie out of an idea I find so fucking stupid is actually very impressive to me.” ~ Vern.

^^ Let’s petition to get this on the Blu Ray cover

]]>By: BrianBhttp://outlawvern.com/2019/10/08/joker/#comment-3404367
Fri, 18 Oct 2019 03:54:54 +0000http://outlawvern.com/?p=35833#comment-3404367That scene was also the one with the loudest laughs in my screening. The little person scene first aim isn’t being a joke, it’s a troll–just like the movie largely. It signals a lot to provoke a reaction, but as soon as you reflect at all about what is going on, it smacks you in the face about how its so on the nose and there’s nothing under the hood. A number of people have thrown out–amusingly similar to TAXI DRIVER given that it actually would make a difference in TAXI DRIVER–how most of the movie might just be in Fleck’s head. Maybe Fleck/Joker was in the mental ward/arkham the whole time and it’s a big hallcuination, maybe his death dream kicks off after he literally fridges himself, etc. But what’s striking about those ambiguities is how little significance any of those outcomes actually carries. Beetz not actually being there with him and his supportive girlfriend is practically the same thing.
]]>By: Broddiehttp://outlawvern.com/2019/10/08/joker/#comment-3404197
Sat, 12 Oct 2019 01:14:25 +0000http://outlawvern.com/?p=35833#comment-3404197My humor is really warped. I didn’t laugh at that scene with Gary. I realized the setup right away and found it too on the nose and did feel for the guy. The one guy who laughed did quiet up as soon as he realized he was the only one at my show to do so. To his credit I was the only one who laughed when he dropped the revolver in front of the sick little kids at the hospital and then does a “shhhshh” gesture as if that was gonna undo the fuck shit that just occured. Unlike that other guy though I just kept on laughing.
]]>By: VERNhttp://outlawvern.com/2019/10/08/joker/#comment-3404191
Fri, 11 Oct 2019 22:53:18 +0000http://outlawvern.com/?p=35833#comment-3404191It’s funny that we have, what, 4 or 5 cases of a theater where one person loudly laughs at that part? I hope that was their specific design.
]]>By: Tawdryhttp://outlawvern.com/2019/10/08/joker/#comment-3404189
Fri, 11 Oct 2019 22:20:06 +0000http://outlawvern.com/?p=35833#comment-3404189Played like somewhere between the humor of Todd Solondz and Harmony Korine for me. The not-funny nature of something told with the structure of a joke wraps all the way around to being funny again, for me at least.

Or maybe I’m the asshole, because I was pretty much the only one laughing in my theater.

]]>By: VERNhttp://outlawvern.com/2019/10/08/joker/#comment-3404170
Fri, 11 Oct 2019 17:58:08 +0000http://outlawvern.com/?p=35833#comment-3404170I think it’s designed to have exactly the effect we’re describing. It might make some people laugh, but it’s in a context where you don’t want to laugh, and become uncomfortable in a non-humorous way. That’s why I say it’s not quite a joke – it’s working to achieve something different.
]]>By: Tawdryhttp://outlawvern.com/2019/10/08/joker/#comment-3404169
Fri, 11 Oct 2019 16:17:59 +0000http://outlawvern.com/?p=35833#comment-3404169I am so baffled by the reaction to the “little person scene” OF COURSE it’s a joke. It’s shot like a joke. It’s built like a joke. It plays out like a joke. It’s basically the ONLY moment in the whole film where fleck does something “Joker-y.” Now, you may not think it’s a *funny* joke. But that’s kinda the point. That’s like, how the Joker works, isn’t it? It’s the cinematic version of “Knock, Knock” “Whos there?” “it’s the police, your son was just hit by a bus and he’s dead.”
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